Sarah Pratt presents a body of work that is inspired by the life and death of her dog, Laptop.

The death of a loyal companion invokes feelings of pain, isolation and nostalgia.

The process of remembering seems to root us in another time and place, a timeless, intangible realm.

Intrigued by ‘The Wood Between the Worlds’ in C.S. Lewis’s ‘The Magician’s Nephew’, the artist’s work also alludes to her imagined existence of a strange, green in-between place where her deceased dog now resides.

Using pen, ink, gouache, collage, gold leaf and paper cutting techniques, she focuses on producing a series of works that are an exploration of life, death, memory and place.

‘Golden Haze – End of year group salon in aid of the Sunflower Fund. Accessible, affordable artwork across a broad range of mediums by emerging and established local creatives.

END OF YEAR CHARITY SHOW AT SALON91 (DECEMBER 2014 – JANUARY 2015)

PRESS RELEASE:

A HUGE THANK YOU to all the generous participating artists, especially Dani Loureiro, who did all the design work for the show & as well as to our supportive clients. Thank you for everyone’s generosity, hard work & patience. The funds raised by the GOLDEN HAZE show in aid of THE SUNFLOWER FUND will pay for 10 tissue type tests!

Dani Loureiro, Cassandra Leigh Johnson, Tess Metcalf, Nina Torr, Mariëtte Bergh, and Maaike Bakker, together with Salon91, present an all-female illustration & multidisciplinary exhibition themed around the idea of ‘Gravity’, a natural phenomenon few have managed to escape. Playing on the idea of opposing gravity, defying it, and also being fascinated by it, the group intends to explore the polarities of destruction, inversion, and attraction. Utilizing a broad range of materials, ‘Gravity’ will be interpreted and expressed in ways unimagined up until now…

Born in Zimbabwe in 1972, Sarah Pratt holds a Master of Fine Arts degree. She is a highly skilled printmaker, specializing in copper etching, linocut, collograph and monoprint. After spending 10 years in the print department of Michaelis as a part-time staff member , Sarah decided to devote most of her time to making her own work. She is an extremely prolific artist, constantly creating, and participating in a number of exhibitions. Sarah works from a group studio in Observatory, where she is currently interested in ink and gouache on paper, paper cut-out work, monoprints and drypoints.

Toward or into non-existence. While travelling from Cape Town to Dubai, Manchester to Wales, London to Singapore, and finally New Zealand back to Cape Town, Sarah Pratt presents a body of work both inspired and dictated by a ‘Journey’. ‘Away’ invokes feelings of being apart, elsewhere, afar and astray. Travel exposes us to other worlds that, despite our scheduled timeline, seem to exist in a timeless realm. While moving in a systematic manner from point to point, Sarah Pratt harnesses her travel experiences, both physical and psychological, to inform the nature of these works. Using pen, ink and gouache, she focuses on producing a series of works that are an exploration of other-worldliness, works that illustrate another place and are created in unfamiliar environment

Home is wherever I’m with you – A large-scale group show by Salon91s favourite artists! Expect to see accessible, affordable work across a broad range of mediums by emerging local creatives. This festive season Salon91 will donate a percentage of the profits raised from the show to the Ithemba Labantwana Children’s Home.

Salon91 Contemporary Art Collection proudly presents Intermixed with my realities and feelings, a solo exhibition by Johannesburg-based young rising talent and investment artist, Nelson Makamo, a highly skilled painter, printmaker and draughtsman. The exhibition will feature a combination of oil painting, watercolour, silkscreen & monotype print, charcoal as well as pen and ink drawings varying from dramatic monochrome to richly emotive coloured works. Key themes informing Makamo’s practice include the city of Johannesburg with its dizzying dynamism, portraiture, the narrative of the artist’s personal history – an unpolitical archive of personal experience, as well as themes of migration, urbanization, idenity, masquerade and the transition from childhood to adulthood. Makamo ultimately strives to communicate a universal experience, which viewers can relate to and access through his artwork.

Nelson Makamo, was born in 1982, in the small town of Nylstroom (now Modimolle), Limpopo province. Makamo moved to Johannesburg to join the Artist Proof Studio in January 2003 where he studied for three years and worked for another two years at the gallery and as curator. During 2005 he was awarded a bursary from Johnson and Johnson and the Pinpointone Human Resources Scholarship. The artist has exhibited in an impressive number of group and solo exhibitions in South Africa, France, Italy, America, The Netherlands and Scotland. His first solo exhibition, Walk with Me, was held at the Obert Contemporary Gallery in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg. During 2006 Makamo exhibited alongside some of South Africa’s most established artists such as David Koloane, Colbert Mashile, Deborah Bell and William Kentridge in a group exhibition titled Ten Years of Printmaking: David Krut Print Studio. Nelson participated in a group exhibition at Salon91 in Cape Town, titled Figuring Difference during 2012, curated by Andrew Lamprecht. Makamo’s art is housed in the corporate collections of Standard Chartered, Telkom, City of Johannesburg, Unisa, Matasis Investment Holdings and Obert Gallery. Private local investors, as well as famous international personalities, such as fashion mogul Georgio Armani and musician Annie Lenox, also form part of his collectors. Some recent achievements include being named Art South Africa’s Seventh Bright Young Thing and winning the Klipdrift Gold Artists Award, as well as participating in the Venice Biennale. Makamo currently works as a fulltime artist from his studio in The City of Gold.

The Witching Hour is an exploration of the magical and secret spaces of the world. Artists Candice Ježek and Jade Klara use a whimsical and powerfully feminine style to create rich narratives of unexpected yet somehow familiar themes. Expressed through various mediums of painting, sculpture, and print, they aim to move the viewer to a place of both sweetness and sorrow. The witching hour is a visually stimulating, diverse and powerful showing of the reflections of these two artists’ lives.

The Witching Hour will run at Salon91 from 16 October – 9 November.
It will feature the lovely Jade Klara and Candice Ježek [aka Ž].
The Show will open on WEDNESDAY EVENING 16 October 2013 at 18h30.

There is a beautiful synergy that exists between Paul Senyol & Andrzej Urbanski’s paintings. A VACANT PASSAGE is the story of two artists traveling and leaving behind remnants and legacies, told and expressed through powerful & uniquely abstracted artworks. Andrzej Urbanski [Pol/Ger] and Paul Senyol [Zar] first met during Urbanski’s residency in Cape Town in June of 2012. Soon they began to discover the many similarities, which exist across their individual artistic practices and approaches, even though the execution of their work differs radically.

A VACANT PASSAGE presents an all-new body of work from Urbanski and Senyol respectively, as well as some collaborative pieces, all of which relate to their history and the common happenings of the years when both artists’ families experienced the repercussions of The Second World War. The works on exhibition reference a time and a place, which no longer exist. Both artists having experienced this particular location in a different context, come together to seek out and construct a narrative from the puzzle pieces of a past, which neither has any actual recollection of, other than a shoebox filled with photos, newspaper clippings, essays as well as stories handed down from generation to generation. To the artists, Germany is a vacant place, Poland is a vacant place, and some day, South Africa too might become a vacant place.

While the subject matter may seem very specific, the works carry a truly universal message. The exhibition will feature a unique AUGMENTED REALITY aspect, which will further enhance the level of accessibility, as well as the viewer’s experience of the exhibition by means of user-friendly computer software & technologies. Visitors will be able to download the software to devices such as Smartphones & Ipads to enjoy an enhanced experience, which will offer further insight into the artists, their stories and the works on show. The exhibition flyer, the shopfront and the artworks will be layered with interactive digital content. Viewers can expect to see medium to large-scale paintings varying from monochrome black and white, to beautiful hues of colour on paper and on canvas, as well as a number of collaborative works.

Andrzej Urbanski (Born 1983) is a German visual artist of Polish ancestry, currently residing in Cape Town. Andrzej’s early artistic background has developed and evolved over the course of 16 years spent painting, creating sculptures, being involved in several art projects, exhibitions and teaching positions around the globe. The artist holds a Masters Degree in Fine Arts, attained during 2012 from the EAE (European Art Ensemble) at the ECAL (University of Art & Design) in Lausanne, Switzerland and a Bachelor of Arts in Communication Design/Graphic Design from BTK-FH in Berlin since 2010. In June of 2012 Andrzej completed a residency at /A WORD OF ART as a part of his studies. The mandate for the EAE program states that students must engage in dialogue with foreign scholars and institutions, holding at its core the need for interpersonal connection and foreign travel to gather experience and exchange ideas between art professionals, educators, and students. Aside from his finished thesis research, Andrzej is interested in exploring the process of creating work in different social environments around the globe, drawing influence and inspiration from architecture, landscape, photography, design elements and media/advertising & of course from the other artists he encounters on his journey. His main artistic focus is on human social behaviour and learned or innate reactions to varying shapes and colours.

PAUL SENYOL | ARTISTS PROFILE

Paul Senyol was born on the 25th of October 1980 in Cape Town, South Africa. Paul has been drawing and painting since his early high school years, however never pursuing any form of artistic or graphic training. At age sixteen, he discovered the freedom of skateboarding and punk rock music in the beautiful suburb of Welgemoed, where he grew up. This naturally became a key influence in his early drawings, sketches and paintings, while skateboard graphics, album covers, magazine layouts and illustrations played a role in developing his aesthetic eye. Around the same time, he also became exposed to the creativity of graffiti and street artists such as Marc Gonzales, Ed Templeton, and Barry McGee – all of this forming part of his early art education. A few years later Paul was introduced to and moved by the creative thought and artistic genius of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, and Cy Twombly respectively. Senyol’s lack of formal training and schooling has given him the freedom to break away from traditional notions of painting, to explore genres and styles, and to meld mediums, allowing him a creative freedom that flows so evidently through his work. Senyol’s art lingers gracefully and intentionally between beauty and honesty and brings a surreal, yet abstract world into being. His current work focuses heavily on narrative, shape, line, form, composition, colour & texture. Each faint line, bold brushstroke and shape is carefully composed to breathe life into its environment, reflecting something of light, serenity, experience and thought. His finished work seeks to engage the viewer through translating his own experiences to canvas, allowing an open discussion and translation of his work. Senyol has exhibited extensively throughout South Africa and abroad. This year Paul has been nominated as a finalist to the Absa Atelier Competition 2013. He currently works from a studio in Woodstock, Cape Town.

Honeymoon marks a personal current period in artist Katrin Coetzer’s life, where she is forging a connection between her inner world and the geographical spaces she visits – real, imaginary and remembered. Honeymoon further references a waning sweetness and suggests the meeting point of fantasy, place and memory. The content of this body of work is centered around themes of spatial exploration, & exotic vs local seen through the lenses of feeling and itinerary…

Katrin Coetzer was born in Cape Town, South Africa. She completed her BA in Visual Communication at Stellenbosch University in 2007 and a BPhil in Visual Art majoring in Illustration in 2012 at the same institution. During 2006 the artist was selected as a finalist in the Timo Smuts competition, at the US Gallery in Stellenbosch. Katrin has worked as a freelance designer and illustrator since 2008 and has exhibited her work in galleries both nationally and internationally. Selected group exhibitions in which the artist has participated, include, Fin, Stellenbosch University Graduate Exhibition (2007); Greatest Hits at the Association of Visual Arts, Cape Town 2008; Verf group show, Blank Projects Gallery, Cape Town 2008; Ontopoftheworld, group show Cape Town Stadium (June 2009); If you let yourself love a wild thing, group show at Salon 91, Cape Town (2011); Draft, group exhibition of selected Masters work, US gallery, Stellenbosch (2011); Safe Spaces group exhibition & campaign auction, Freeworld Design Centre, Cape Town (2011); Handbound, group exhibition coordinated by Prof Keith Dietrich, Sasol Gallery, Stellenbosch (2011); Winter Wonderland, group show at Salon 91, Cape Town (2011); Swatch Illustrative Berlin, selected in category Book Design, highly commended, Berlin (2011); & Paper is You, group show at Salon91 Cape Town (2011). Katrin was elected as a grant recipient in 2011 from the Stellenbosch University to attend Design and the City in Finland through the University of Helsinki, a summer course that explores the relationships between art, design, urbanism and spatial identity. During 2012 the artist exhibited her work at the Design Indaba Expo as part of the CCIBA/Stellenbosch University bookstand. The artist was also one of two South African artists selected to exhibit at the Illustrators Exhibition at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair in Italy. The same show toured throughout Japan with the Itabashi Art Museum from May 2012 to 2013. The artist is currently living & working in Cape Town.

A two-man show by Jordan Metcalf and Daniel Ting Chong.
‘Heart of Gold’ is a playful exploration of the concepts of money, consumerism and greed, featuring the highly sought-after works of award-winning Cape Town-based graphic artists, Jordan Metcalf and Daniel Ting Chong. Following on the form of their previous collaborative project ‘Fear.Less’, the artists have played with scale and medium to re-contextualise consumer-based iconography and lexicon as art. The pieces are stark, sleek, witty and graphic, using limited colour palettes and diverse mediums such as glass, paper, wood and ceramic.

Daniel Ting Chong is an illustrator, designer and artist based in Cape Town, South Africa. Daniel was born in 1987 in Cape Town. The artist studied graphic design at Vega in Cape Town. He is emerging as one of Cape Town’s top creative talents following a series of art exhibitions, talks, commissions from clients and design collaborations with leading international brands including Nike, New York Times and the Discovery Channel. Daniel has been featured in Computer Arts Projects, Photoshop Advanced, NotCot, Grafik Magazine and One Small Seed. Daniel has been invited as guest speaker to prestigious events such as the Design Indaba traveling conference ‘Design Indabar’ (Cape Town), Pecha Kucha at Design Indaba 2011 (Cape Town), Cape Town Entrepreneur Week 2011 (Cape Town), Thirteen Hours 2011 (Cape Town), TEDx 2012 (Johannesburg). Selected awards to date include Blank Page Exhibition Winner, Semi Finalist Adobe Awards California (Illustration), Semi Finalist Adobe Awards New York (Illustration), Sappi Paper Think Award, Gold Loerie Award – MK Bruce Lee Magazine 3, Top 200 Young South African’s Mail & Guardian, Silver Eagle Award – Wordsworth Books (Only Today Studio). Daniel will be collaborating with Jordan Metcalf in ‘Heart of Gold’, an exhibition which will run at Salon91 from the 27th of March 2013 until the 20th of April.

Jordan Metcalf is a Cape Town based graphic designer and artist. As well as doing commercial work for international clients like the New York Times and Nike, he has exhibited personal graphic and analogue artwork in exhibitions both locally and internationally; most recently as part of an group show curated by Pictoplasma at La Gaîté Lyrique in Paris, and the Pictoplasma festival in Berlin. Jordan will be collaborating with Daniel Ting Chong in ‘Heart of Gold’, an exhibition which will run at Salon91 from the 27th of March 2013 until the 20th of April.

‘I‘d Rather Be Swimming’ End of year Group Salon in association with the I AM WATER ocean conservation trust, featuring some Salon91 favourites as well as some fresh all-new local talent.

As passionate Ocean lovers, I AM WATER, founded by champion freediver Hanli Prinsloo, strives to share the joy aquatic with as wide an audience as possible. With the help of Salon 91 water will once again take centre stage, as it should! We are all Water, and we all share the opportunity and challenge to protect our last wilderness beneath the waves. The I am Water Ocean Conservation Trust aims to do this through education and awareness, spreading the love and protection of the oceans through introducing South Africans from all walks of life to the ocean environment & important conservation issues.

Marieke Prinsloo-Rowe, best known for her beautiful swimmer sculptures, which were installed at the Sea Point Promenade until recently, will be the guest speaker at the opening.

Salon91 & I AM WATER will be hosting a beach clean up on Sunday the 20th of January 2013 at 10:00 am. We would love for the Salon91 community & everyone who appreciates nature, art or the ocean to get involved. Please contact us on info@salon91.co.za if you would like to help out.

This October The Lovell Gallery & Salon91 Contemporary Art Collection join forces to present GATHER an exhibition by visual artists Augustine Kofie & Paul Senyol, whose works grace the streets and galleries of LA and Cape Town, respectively. GATHER will include works by the individual artists in their signature styles, collaborative works by Senyol & Kofie, as well as a true pièce de résistance, a historic racing Porsche 911, which will be transformed into an object of art inside the gallery as part of this exhibition.

Augustine Kofie (born 1973) is a self-taught artist living and working in Los Angeles. He has exhibited extensively worldwide with seminal shows in New York, California, Japan, The Netherlands, Germany and Switzerland. The artist has been featured in Juxtapoz, The Huffington Post, LA Weekly, Project Room and Studio Voice. Kofie is internationally renowned for his awe-inspiring technical skills, employed to create his unique abstract compositions, characterized by simple geometric shapes, exact lines & smooth colour – complex yet elegant and in a league of their own.

Paul Senyol (born 1980) has been drawing and painting since his early high school years, however never pursuing any form of artistic training. Graffiti and street artists such as Marc Gonzales, Ed Templeton, and Barry McGee have all been major influences in his work, and in later years, the artistic genius of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, and Cy Twombly. The absence of formal training has given the artist the freedom to break away from traditional notions of painting, to explore a variety of genres and styles, and to meld mediums, allowing him a creative freedom that flows so evidently through his works. Senyol’s art lingers gracefully and intentionally between beauty and honesty and brings a surreal, yet abstract world into being. Geometry, line, shape, composition, typography, abstraction and colour form the key elements in his work. Senyol has exhibited extensively throughout South Africa and has shown in a number of exhibitions in Europe. He currently works from a studio in Woodstock, Cape Town, and is represented by Salon91 Contemporary Art Collection.

Kofie and Senyol have both succeeded in developing their own unique abstract- & street- inspired artistic identities without any formal training. Process, balance, geometry, layering and typography are common elements, which link these artists’ works together. The pairing of Kofie and Senyol’s practice in GATHER results in a richly diverse visual dialogue and outcome, coexisting beautifully and harmoniously within the gallery space. GATHER further invites the viewer to be witness to the art-making process of two original contemporary street- and fine-artists in their own right. A world-class exhibition not to be missed!

Salon91 is proud to present Liefde Leegte / Love Loss Varenka Paschke’s latest collection of paintings depicted in her signature style, characterized by her unique ‘canvases’, made up of eclectic blocks of fabric, colour, texture & pattern, skillfully married with her sensitive treatment of line, light, & a subtle palette in her largely figurative oil paintings.

Varenka Paschke was born in Cape Town, South Africa during 1976. She holds a BA degree in Drama & Psychology from the University of Stellenbosch, as well as a BA in Fine Art, which she attained from the Michaelis School of Fine art (UCT) in 2001, where she majored in painting. Varenka has been exhibiting extensively since the late nineties in Johannesburg & Cape Town within South Africa, and has also shown her work in a number of cities internationally, including Barcelona, London, Antwerp & Munich to mention but a few. The artist also completed a residency program in Barcelona during 2005, and has been involved in a number of public art projects and corporate, as well as private commissions, both locally and abroad. During 2002 she was nominated as a finalist in the Absa Young Artist of the Year Awards, and in 2005 as a finalist in the Sasol New Signatures Competition. Varenka currently lives and works between Antwerp, Belgium and Cape Town, South Africa with her husband Stef Bos and their children.

Walking on Strand beach near Cape Town one comes across a proliferation of shoes and other plastic debris from China scattered along the high-tide mark. From the survivors of a Ming dynasty shipwreck integrating into Kenyan society, to the story of a giraffe being welcomed to China as unicorn in the early 15 th century, the history of shoreline arrivals and trade between Africa and China is a long and often mysterious one.
Taking the sea, the vehicle for the original contact between China and Africa, as a point of departure Shoes From Chinese Ships features both emerging and established Chinese and South African artists. The show is a conversation in painting, drawing, installation and sculpture between the intricate and increasingly complicated relationship between Africa and China. Interrupting the commercial import/export relationship and replacing it with an integrated one that allows for a more personal discourse with a faraway place, the exhibition includes a collaboration between some of the South African artists involved and students from the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou. Living and working all around the world the artists explore the mystery, depth and intricacy of exchanges brought about by trade between these two countries throughout the centuries.

About ~ The Artists

Working from China, South Africa, Germany and France the artists selected for Shoes From Chinese Ships are all of South African or Chinese nationality. The artists were selected for their visual and conceptual sensibilities, particularly the elements of nostalgia, fragility, mystery and displacement that tie their works together…

Students from The China Academy of Art are participating in collaboration with the South African artists listed above. The China Academy of Art is the most influential academy of fine arts in China with the most complete range of degree offerings and programs of study. It houses a diverse pool of artistic talent, with a focus on integrating theory and practice. Combining modern technical and cultural disciplines with traditional ones, the academy encompasses fine art, architecture, film and new media.

In his much-anticipated first official solo exhibition opening this April, artist, Paul Senyol will be showcasing a collection of new paintings on paper, entitled The Man of Dust at Salon91 in Cape Town.

This body of work will explore our shared experience of the human condition in relation to the phrase:

“And as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly man.”

The works will seemingly speak to one another, revealing parallels between ‘the man of dust’ and ‘the heavenly man’ and contrasts between the very things that make us on the one hand, beautiful creations and on the other, wounded beings. Senyol’s carefully-considered concepts, intricate thoughts, and everyday observations will be translated into shapes, lines and forms, creating his signature compositions that reveal something of life, nature, honesty and faith. His unique abstract style with its roots in Street Art, and inspired by great artists like Basquiat and Miró, remains open-ended, expressed through a visual language, which may be universally understood. In collaboration with Salon91 Senyol will also be publishing a highly collectable book that will catalog and form part of the exhibition and showcase the creative processes, drafts and thoughts behind the finished artworks.

MEDIUM: Abstract, mixed media paintings on paper.

Artworks:

Man of Dust and Artist’s Book:

Limited Edition Artist’s Book by Paul Senyol – signed and numbered with customized sleeve. Only a few copies remain! The book, titled “The Man of Dust” was produced by Salon91 and Paul Senyol, and designed by Candice Jezek and Paul Senyol during 2012. The book was launched along with the exhibition by the same name during April of 2012.